Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Language is a means of communication used to deliver the information from one individual to another. In such a communication, each individual has aparticular creativity in the use of language, such as manipulating, exploring the conventional language that has been created socially. Creative individuals often use figurative expressions in both oral and written communication. A figurative language is a group of words used to give particular emphasis to an idea or sentiment. One of the figurative expressions is metaphor. Based on Lakoff and Johnson 1980 in their seminal study “Metaphors We Life By” in their concept “cognitive linguistic view of metaphor” challenged the deeply entrenched view of metaphor by claiming that: i metaphor is a property concepts, and not of words; ii the function of a metaphor is to better understand certain concepts, and not just some artistic purpose; iii metaphor is often not based on similarity; iv metaphor is used effortlessly in everyday life not just by special talented people but by ordinary people too; and v metaphor, is an inevitable process of human reasoning and thought, far from being a superfluous though pleasing linguistic ornament. Kovecses, 2010: ix stated that metaphor is figure of speech in which one thing is compared with another by saying that one is the other, and he also said that the word is used metaphorically in order to achieve some rhetorical and artistic effect, since we write and speak metaphorically to communicate 1 eloquently, to impress others with “beautiful,” esthetically pleasing words, or to express some deep emotion. Metaphor has been widely discussed within the discipline of translation studies, predominantly with respect to transfer methods. It has been argued that metaphor could become a problem in translation from the source language and culture into another due to linguistic and cultural differences. Besides, metaphor usually performs implicit meaning along with it. Therefore, to transfer the metaphor, the translator must realize that there are some languages in which new figures of speech are seldom created, and translating it into different languages may cause misinterpretation. If the source text is using an image in a different way from that in the target language, it can cause misunderstanding on the part of the target language reader for the point of similarity intended by the original text. It is important to know that Japanese language has its distinctive characteristics such as world-building structure and lexical concepts which are unknown in the source language. In addition, it is also important to realize that one metaphor in one language can be expressed in another either by changing an image, and its grammatical category for intelligibility. The example of the phenomenon in translating metaphor is illustrated below: SL : 彼 ぬき よ。 Kare watanukidayo. TL : He plays dumb like a raccoon dog. Hasegawa, 2012;91 In the example above, the translation of metaphor into simile plus sense, because the metaphor tanuki in SL is translated into plays dumb like a raccoondog in TL. Based on the gazoku dictionary, the meaning of tanuki is raccoon dog. Therefore kare wa tanukidayo is literally translated into ‘he is raccoon dog’. In the TL the word ‘like’ is a sign of simile, and the word ‘plays dumb’ is a sign of sense. Based on Newmark 1981:88 the strategy used to translate the metaphor above example is metaphorwhich is translated into simile plus sense. In other case, translation plays an essential role in transferring message from one linguistic system to another linguistic system. It seems that the differences between source language and target language and other variations in linguistic system sometimes pose challenges in the process of translation. Sucha challenge is shift in translation. According to Catford 1965:73, ‘Shift’ is the departure from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to the TL. One of such shifts is the Shift of level in that a SL item at one linguistic level has a TL translation equivalent in a different level. For example: SL : 彼 ぬき よ。 Kare watanukidayo. TL : He plays dumb like a raccoon dog. Hasegawa, 2012;91 The metaphor tanuki in SL translated into plays dumb like a raccoon dog in TL. In this case, the kind of translation shift is the unit shift from phrase to sentence, because literally tanukiis translated in English into raccoon dog, meanwhile, the translator translated it into plays dumb like a raccon dog. The fact is that the TL has more meaning components than the SL. Furthermore, the metaphor is not only about language at all, but it is also a way of conceptualizing one mental domain in term of another. This theory is called conceptual metaphor Lakoff, 1993;203. For example, in the metaphor “this gadget will save you hours”, the conceptual metaphor of this example is TIME IS MONEY Lakoff, 2003;7. Therefore, the conceptual metaphor should be transfered from the SL to the TL. Some research of translation of metaphor has been conducted by researchers such as Sudrama 2003. He discussed the types of metaphors and the strategy of translating metaphors proposed by Larson 1984. Sudana 2008 discussed the strategies used to translate metaphor proposed by Larson 1998, kinds of metaphor proposed by Mulino 1989, and procedure of translating metaphor proposed by Vinay and Venuti 2000. Mahendra 2011 discussed the mapping of conceptual metaphor proposed by Kovecses 2002, and the procedure of translating metaphor proposed by Newmark 1981. Lilasari 2012 analyzed the meaning of live metaphor proposed by Larson 1998, and translation shifts proposed by Catford 1974. Based on the previous research, this present study uses the theory of metaphor identification procedures MIP proposed by the Pragglejaz group 2007 to identify the metaphor, because the previous research did not use this theory. In this present study, the theory of conceptual metaphor proposed by Lakoff 2003 is used tofind out the conceptual metaphor in SL and TL, because in the previous research, Mahendra 2011 only analysed the mapping of conceptual metaphor proposed by Kovecses 2002. This study uses the same theory of strategies to translate metaphor proposed by Newmark 1981, and translation shifts proposed by Catford 1974 as the previous research, but the difference is that the data of this study were taken from the Japanese poetry and its translation equivalentinto Indonesian, and the previous research used the English texts and their translation equivalents as the data source. Therefore, this research tries to analyze the translation of metaphors especially in the Japanese and Indonesian poetry written by Edizal 2000 entitled Takuboku Ishikawa dan Segenggam Pasir 石川啄木と 一握 砂

1.2 Problems of the Study